Meet our guest, Michaell Magrutsche, a neurodiverse artist whose life is a testament to the power of human resilience. Art became his lifeline, aiding him in his journey of self-discovery and helping him navigate the challenges of neurodivergence. In tune with his story, we examine the pivotal role art plays as a universal language and a potent medium for human discourse. We challenge systemic indoctrination, the fallacy of one-size-fits-all solutions, and the ingrained conditioning that molds our understanding of gender, race, and power.
Prepare to rethink what education and personal growth mean with our enlightening discussion on experiential education and conscious parenting. Michaell provides invaluable insights into the limitations of standardized testing, the need to embrace neurodiversity, and the importance of recognizing the unique qualities of each individual. We also consider the transformative power of failures and mistakes in our learning journey. We hope this conversation will inspire you to reflect on our current education system and the potential for growth that lies within each of us.
We round off our discussion by exploring Michaell's experiences with art as a tool for personal and societal change. His journey from struggling with neurodivergence as a child to leveraging his artistic abilities to become relevant serves as a beacon of hope. We explore the potential of art to address systemic and human problems. Remember, it's never too late for self-discovery and growth. Tune in and let's start disrupting the status quo, one conversation at a time.
If you feel inspired please consider sharing this episode with a friend, writing a 5⭐️ review or becoming a Raising Wild Hearts Member here!
Meet our guest, Michaell Magrutsche, a neurodiverse artist whose life is a testament to the power of human resilience. Art became his lifeline, aiding him in his journey of self-discovery and helping him navigate the challenges of neurodivergence. In tune with his story, we examine the pivotal role art plays as a universal language and a potent medium for human discourse. We challenge systemic indoctrination, the fallacy of one-size-fits-all solutions, and the ingrained conditioning that molds our understanding of gender, race, and power.
Prepare to rethink what education and personal growth mean with our enlightening discussion on experiential education and conscious parenting. Michaell provides invaluable insights into the limitations of standardized testing, the need to embrace neurodiversity, and the importance of recognizing the unique qualities of each individual. We also consider the transformative power of failures and mistakes in our learning journey. We hope this conversation will inspire you to reflect on our current education system and the potential for growth that lies within each of us.
We round off our discussion by exploring Michaell's experiences with art as a tool for personal and societal change. His journey from struggling with neurodivergence as a child to leveraging his artistic abilities to become relevant serves as a beacon of hope. We explore the potential of art to address systemic and human problems. Remember, it's never too late for self-discovery and growth. Tune in and let's start disrupting the status quo, one conversation at a time.
If you feel inspired please consider sharing this episode with a friend, writing a 5⭐️ review or becoming a Raising Wild Hearts Member here!
Welcome, Revolutionary Mama, to the Raising Wild Hearts podcast. I'm Ryan Watkin, Educator, Mama of Three Reveal it Heart and Passionate Soul, on a Mission to empower and inspire you.
Speaker 1:Here we'll explore psychology, spirituality, parenthood and the intersection where they all come together. We'll discover how challenges can be fertile soil for growth and that even in the messy middle of motherhood, we can find magic in the mundane. Join me on my own personal journey as I talk to experts and share resources on education, creativity, self-care, family, culture and more. I believe we can change the world by starting at home in our own minds and hearts, and that when we do, we'll be passing down the most important legacy there is Healing, and so it is. Hello, welcome back to the podcast. My Loves. I'm so excited. Everything is just so divine timing, and this is the case for this guest I have on today. I am joined by Michael Magruch. He is I'm going to tell you about him in one second when I pull up his bio.
Speaker 3:He's a neurodiverse artist, very, very wacky. I was a sick child, was born in Vienna, austria, and I hit the wall. I was sick and then I went late to school when I was seven and I just couldn't. I couldn't understand anything, I couldn't. I understood it but I couldn't regurgitate, I couldn't read in front of a class, I was stuttering. I extremely dyslexic with this graph here where I can't read my handwriting.
Speaker 3:And you know, at 40 years ago you had to really write neatly and stuff legibly and I had to, literally. And you know how it is when you are young. So I was already old a year and with seven that's a lot. You know, like the younger you are, the difference of ages is very important. So then I had to repeat two or three grades In Europe you have to, you're not getting pulled with you. You have to repeat them and I. So I was the old big guy that didn't understand anything. So I wasn't, I wasn't tackled. I wasn't because I'm pretty strong personality, but I I just was literally frozen and, and you know, constantly questioned. Why am I not understanding this when everybody? So I'm the one that is outside. So there, really, you don't need the shaming from other people. You have people saying, oh, it wasn't bullied or whatever. It's the system that shames you actually, because you're not fitting the norm or you cannot. Everybody else can adapt to the norm and you are not capable of. Because I wanted to definitely belong but I couldn't. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Gosh, thank you so much for hopping in there. That's better than any bio I could have read, you know, just hearing from your heart and your mind. I think it's so important today that we have these conversations because you, I believe we're probably one of the pioneers. I think now it's a little more common to see neurodivergence. We have, you know, better assessment tools. But, too, I think there's some sort of spiritual significance and we've talked about this on a a past episode with Jenna Jocus. You know we were exploring the spiritual significance of like the canaries in the coal mine, so to speak, that these children now are telling us like it's time to change these systems. It's time to change the way we've always done things. It's time to shake up the word normal, or what it means to be normal, or that that's not even a thing anymore. So as you grew, Michael, how did you step into your authentic power? How did you find your gifts? How did you hone in to figure out? Why are you here? Why is this happening for you?
Speaker 3:I was literally. I tell you something, I tell you a spoiler alert I was till 55, I hit the wall. I hit the wall literally till 55 to fit in, to adapt, to make money, to be a part of. And literally nothing has changed since then, just the awareness, my awareness. I wrote my last book. I have a new book out, but I have my last book that I wrote. And, by the way I write books, this is the sixth one that I'm having now, but the fifth one that I wrote. I need a computer still to read them to me. I'm just saying I'm writing them but I can't read them myself. So so I need a computer to read them. And I have found out.
Speaker 3:In my last book, where I separated, I said why are it he's not here? Is art that saved me? Art made me be a human, made me fit in, somehow connecting with other humans, and as art creation, my whole life was like I was selling tapes out of my trunk fashion shoe producer, advertising, film video. So when I was 30, I looked at that and said I'm an artist. So that was one pivot point. So I didn't have the system telling me society, politics, religions to send me. I'm an artist. So that was was, was was a major pivot, because I know very established artists that cannot, they don't understand and they don't want to call themselves artists, even though they're famous. So it is something that has to come from in. But what happened was? Art helped me through and now I forgot your question.
Speaker 1:I just Well, I mean, you're, you're doing, you're saying it. I just was trying to figure out what shifted in you, and it sounds like you had a pivotal moment at 30, when art saved your life and you realized like this, is it?
Speaker 1:And then thank you for being so honest, of like hitting the wall at 55, because this is for me. I think this is true for all of us. We live in the cyclical, you know, rollercoaster, so to speak, and we do have ups and downs, and it's not always, you know, sunshine and rainbows. We go through these dark nights of the soul I think that's kind of a popularized term right now and that's all to help us grow, it's all to help us step into, you know, michael 2.0, ryan 2.0, like the next version of ourselves. I think that's beautiful.
Speaker 3:And so this is what you asked me. So what got me through was art creation, being creative, because I separate the art, the art process. In that book I separated the art process from the art product. The product is just a product like everything else. The only unique thing of the product is it is has no purpose.
Speaker 3:So you create a painting, whatever it is, let's say, an abstract painting and you do it by talking to your non-physical self, which is where you are at night, because you don't feel your physical. So the non-physical and the physical I don't want to go in spirituality, but I'm saying you're going in and out and you are in front of a plane canvas and you say, okay, what do I feel? I feel like a baby blue. And you make that baby blue and then say, okay, what color could it? Would like pink to it, then a little green to it, and then you want to put a red point. Without it it doesn't work. You have to do something else. You're constantly talking to it. Like you with your podcast, you had one day the thing I want to do a podcast. That was your inspiration, the millions of podcasts out there, and yours is great because it's your podcast, it's your essence expressed.
Speaker 3:And what I found out, what was so, what my 55 year kicker was, was we humans, we are a part of nature, and just that awareness made my life totally better. Nothing happened with my job better, or money, or more money or whatever. Just that. That I wake up now and be happy, the awareness that we are part of nature, in nature, you. It doesn't matter if you have an ant or an elephant, if you are a little monkey or whatever you are. You are worthy because you exist, because everything has a purpose in nature. Remember, I mean science says it now, Nature makes no mistake. And when I knew that, when I got that and I said, yeah, we are part of nature, we are not part of systems. Systems don't give birth to humans. We are part of nature. That means all a thing of system value yeah, see you later is artificial.
Speaker 3:So all of the worth is we all have worth because we exist. So our existence, so all these kids that want to off themselves and whatever or cut themselves, that they feel them, they are here, you know, is that they know you can tell them and say listen, you're a part of nature, there's a reason why you exist and life is basically figuring out what that job. An elephant doesn't need to be self-aware because this elephant is an elephant and an ant is an ant. But we are self-aware because we create creation, animal, we can create. That's why we are self-aware. We are the most evolved species and only we are not the smartest species. They're probably. You know animals are, seems to me, more smarter than we are. I mean, in the tsunami, people die and the animals? Almost. No animals died. There were free roaming animals. No, none of them died.
Speaker 1:They're instincts, or so yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:No, we still have the instinct and we lost our instincts from our systemic being, systemically conditioned, what humans means systemically. Yeah. We have a nature, and that's where stress comes in.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:Because you need sleep, you need to digest information. So when you go into a system, you adapt, so you. So, for example, there's rules, regulation, there's a culture, there's, and you constantly adapt. And this is the strengths that we have a superpower. I call this the third superpower. The first one is creativity. Second one is human dialogue, what we have now, not a system dialogue, but I'm right and you're wrong. And the third one is adaptability. And when we adapt to each other constantly, let's say I'm here in a one system, religion, then in the next is education, next is the school, the next system is the job, next system is the marriage. That system is this house, owner, parent. It's all this systemically. You know, and we move through that, and they cost a lot of energy, because look how many things you fill out and all the other stuff. You know what you're filling out, the forms, and what you're going through and calling politics and everything. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:And that's what, basically, that's what I, what I I'm preaching, what I am.
Speaker 1:Wow, there are so many places I want to go, there's so much gold and everything you just said. First, to touch on, you know, the nature a bit. I think that we have forgotten. For sure, we're getting back to our true nature. You know, we in my house are very involved in nature. Nature is a symbol for God, if not God itself. So you know, we're really getting back to that. And our children? I've said this before and I'll say it again they're programmed between the ages of zero and seven, 10, something like that.
Speaker 1:So you know, we can download that we are animals and we come from nature and we are symbiotic with nature. Or we can download that, you know, go to preschool and listen to your teacher and sit down and pretend like you don't have any needs or whatever it may be. You know there's systems start really, really young, you know, maybe arguably with the birthing system in the traditional medical, you know, system. So that's amazing and thank you for sharing everything you did. We do have a mental health crisis in our country, in the world, for sure.
Speaker 1:So you know a lot of what you said is beginning to unpack that I believe that that starts at home. You know, and that's why I'm here doing this podcast, to get into the minds and hearts of other people, to try a little different way to change 10% a little bit differently. You, you know, internalized an idea and you integrated into your life and that lifted you up from a really hard time in your life. So ideas are one of these, these beautiful things. I love that. You said that that's the second superpower. Now I want to go back to something else you said about art. What is art in your opinion?
Speaker 3:Art is basically difference between art and creativity. It's art has no purpose, it just, it's just it just being the essential, you, the human, that is a creator, animal, and it just whatever comes. You, you create, and art is the blueprint for all humans. It's the only universal language that we have. We don't have another universal language. So if you make a stick figure or your kids do Japanese, icelandic, norwegian, all these people understand it. It does indigenous people I understand it and Western people and Eastern people.
Speaker 3:Art is the language and nobody looks at that. There's no awareness about this. You know, it's like we. You know, I mean God, thanks. Now a third of the people speak English, but art, actually everybody speaks and art is not.
Speaker 3:So when you try to systemize art and say you know, we can't, we have to do Disney characters and edit it and make them systemically correct. So whitewashing history is completely insane because it takes our awareness from where we came to where we are away. We dropped the bomb on Hiroshima and nobody would ever think about that is good now, but we can't say, oh, we never dropped the atomic bomb. You know? I mean that's, it's just, you need to know where we came from and obviously we're not learning a lot because war. We're having a war right now. We shouldn't have a war and that's war is absolutely lost. For example, unconscious it's. It's your so systemic that you're so unconscious of what humans are that you say it's big capitulation. It's saying I cannot have a discourse with you like we have right now. I need to fight you. I'm getting my AK-47 and you get your shotgun and we fight it out.
Speaker 3:Yeah it's a complete capitulation of humanity. It's system act activating. It's very helpful for systems. It's money, it's making an artificial crash, what nature tries to adopt and and, and you know, adapt to it to create harmony. Systems have to destroy. You know war, you know crisis, pandemic. That's what, that's what systems do, and and we are so unconscious that we keep repeating it. And this is why I say you, first step in understanding, every child needs to get their systems and as humans, we created systems. We need system. I don't think don't have systems. We need systems to serve us, but we cannot become, we cannot submit to machines.
Speaker 1:Right. You know, I heard something recently in regards to social media, like if you're not paying for a product, you are the product, and I think that that's so just standard for all the systems that we're in and that we buy into. You know, there are no systems if we opt out. So we have choices. You know, we we had a choice on how we dealt with the pandemic. We had a choice whether we, you know, chose to do the interventions medically that they were recommending or not. We had choices to where the masks are not like and whatever. Your choice is in. That okay, but we need to understand that there is a choice, but it's presented to us as if there were not one.
Speaker 3:Because the system is static, yeah, because there's no dialogue. You and I can talk about an issue and we can solve everything, you know, and even if it ends up that you leave and I leave, but but, but we can solve everything. The system has to have results, one or zero. It has to be one or zero. You know it doesn't work. And in the big lie, you know there's so many system lies, but those system lies that you can't blame anybody. But what? Through the conditioning over generations? Number one is we are eight billion people. No, we are eight people, eight billion unique humans. See, when you don't say that, then it sounds like okay, there's the same of eight billion and we have to do something with them as systems. When you say there's eight billion individual humans with separate fingerprints, with separate irises, with separate DNA, that looks completely different. System life looks completely different. There is no one one size fits all. That it is. And then we find that out systemically. But systemically we can solve it. You know, black Lives Matter, me Too. Movement, all these movements cannot solve the problem.
Speaker 3:That is a system problem that was created by systems. Because, guess what? Your gender, your different gender than me, oh, my goodness, you know how that happened. It's like oh, we need to fight wars. Some person took advantage of the system. We need to fight wars, okay. What do women do? Okay, they cook for the fighters, they make more fighters, they make babies. And that's how genders were. This is how gender started. Oh, the guys are the strong one, the, the strong one, the better ones, you know, because they expand my power. I can expand my power with them. Then we conquered the other lands. They look different. Okay, since we conquered, we must be better than them, see, and that's where racism came. And then sexism is now, you know, it's like oh, and that's why they have a difficulty, because you can't really, it's so fluid, you know, humans are fluid.
Speaker 3:You know, and there's fluid. You can't.
Speaker 2:You can systemize sex, you know right, that's so interesting, I mean you need to show the insects.
Speaker 3:That I mean. It's just so fluid. I mean, how many key words you can put into anything.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's so interesting. So in a prior podcast I interviewed Andre Parity and we talked about masculine principles and feminine principles and how culture is systematizing that too, and how nature tells us that masculine principles are a certain way and then how feminine principles are another way. And I think that's really interesting and I, in one way, I do think it's a social construct, but in the other way, I do think that nature does have a lot to do with it. So it's you know, and you just pointed out a different view, and it's you know, I like trying to wrap my mind around that and it doesn't happen.
Speaker 3:Yeah, together, yeah, that's what.
Speaker 1:Or the other.
Speaker 3:You do the human thing. So I'm saying I'm a soccer player. Then you say you're a soccer player. Then you say your daughter is a soccer player, and so we talk about soccer. We're not talking about soccer to know that the rules of soccer. We talk about soccer. Our experience yeah, because human being human, is an experience to learning and where awareness comes from. You touch the hot stove. You don't need to read five big books to you know that the stove is hot and it's dangerous. So it's an experiential thing and this is where awareness comes through. This is why podcasts are so powerful, because they allow us to see all our angles of experience, that they are not right or wrong, because everybody is unique. Yeah, it can't be right or wrong. You know, if you're a Democrat or a Republican, it doesn't matter. You are that because that's what your uniqueness supports. That's right.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 3:And by understanding that you are that and understanding that I don't have to agree, okay, I don't have to say, okay, I'm going to be a Republican tomorrow or a Democrat or whatever. Yeah, I don't have to agree with that, but I have to. What I have to do as a human since we are inclusive and herd animal, I have to accept your uniqueness.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and your own right. I mean, I think it all starts with self acceptance and you know, this makes me think of growing up in school. There's no opportunity for discourse like this. You know, schools like Acton Academy, it's a kind of a big growing franchise in the U? S. Now they're, you know, priding themselves on using the Socratic method. And so, you know, in my house, just talking to my kids, I mean they're one, six and eight and I'm constantly like, well, what do you think? Well, how, you know, asking them to critically think, asking them to voice their experience and their opinion. It doesn't mean that I'm, I am the leader of the house. I do set the boundaries. I, you know, I set the guidelines with my husband. But also, like, what do you think? Like you know, we talked about neurodiversity again in another podcast and it's about everybody is experiencing the world in a different way.
Speaker 1:Opinions, beliefs, stories, sensory input, sensory output we all have this different world experience. So just because I call this one thing reality doesn't mean that that's the case for you. I think this is such an important conversation to have and to teach or train our kids to have them too, because that's what's going to change the world. That's what's going to say to the systems no more, we're opting out. This is how we're going to do it. It's going to be, you know, polite discourse, like you've mentioned multiple times.
Speaker 3:No, no healthy discourse as a human discourse, because systemic discourse is selling you something being right, being wrong. It is very linear discourse in systems Look at the politics, look how much energy they spend in politics. A political discourse that is about talking about systemically Is it systemically better to do to support this or not? It's not about the humans, it's about when they talk about humans. They talk about the American, our American systemic people, the American public, the American public. What is the American public? That doesn't say anything. It's like zero. That's why they use the word. Yeah.
Speaker 3:They use the word. American people want to know this. You can't do this to the American people. It's all manipulation. Right. What about this? These are humans that live in America. What about that? They would never say that because it doesn't have that manipulative feel.
Speaker 3:Yeah, right, they would never say humans that live in America. They would say American people, right, the American people Systemically. When you separate, okay, is the system relevant or is it human-centric? These things I would teach my kids as soon as possible. I said you need to know and priority is your humanity, because you are a herd animal and even if you're alone in the woods you're talking to yourself. You can't even be alone when you are alone, you are, you're programmed in you that you are a herd animal. That's why you have that tool of mind, that you actually talk to yourself when you're, you know and we have a collective consciousness as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we have a collective Right.
Speaker 3:That doesn't know. Everybody knows your thoughts, but everybody feels what's going on. And when you do, when you kill 300,000 people in a war today, where just the soldiers and destroy everything, see the environmental impact, see the not even the death people, I mean, do you think that has no impact on us? We are connected. We have to take the slack, because we are herd animal, of those 300 people that bearish. We have to because energy is energy, it just, it just moves from one thing to another and when I come to that, I want to just drop this for you.
Speaker 3:You know AI is going to systemize even more. We have we have when computers came and cell phones. People now put out five to eight times as much output per person. Did you get more salary? Did you get more? You know, have an easier life. Do we have more time? No, you don't. The same thing is AI is going to increase this again and make us better system workers there's 40% of this earth have 40% of this. This earth. People have to suffice with $5.50 a day of the workforce. That's 40% of the workforce. Those are working people, not just people that want to get by and not working Right. Have to have to get by by $5.50. Wow.
Speaker 3:So you tell me, when are we waking up from these antiquated systems and adjust them and make them human, relevant? Not that systems can just flourish and be static by humans adapting to them. We need to, we need to separate and that starts in education. That's why my education model that I'm working on we only have two subjects team sports, because you learn tremendously stuff in team sport and team art creation. So the masculine, the team sport, the feminine, the art creation, awareness. And then you, you have a class for awareness.
Speaker 3:What did you learn? How can we comprehend this? And you have human dialogue with each other of what you like. What can we do better? What can we do worse? How can we handle mistakes, failures? Because mistakes, failures are usually a good thing, not a bad thing. It's all systemically completely turned around, because you know, through your adversity, you stay in balance, you're not going just plus, oh, everything is happy. This is another thing of systems, that the conditioners. And then and then the last thing, having a pet, because you need to, as a human, to keep you in your human, in your nature, and to use a five, six senses, which is six, is the resonance you must, nonverbally, because language is a system too. You're not must interact with another living being nonverbally. So I wouldn't give a Harvard degree or Yale degree out ever without without seeing that the guys can take care of an animal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like that.
Speaker 3:I like that a lot. It's so simple, you know, and it's not, it's not. I'm not talking brain science here. This is very bottom line.
Speaker 1:And that's what's okay. So if I'm honest, you're talking about your system of education, I'm pretty alternative, I'm like, I'm pretty, I'm pretty open, I'm pretty progressive as far as this goes, and I still like some ancient part of me, still like clams up, because I go like, ooh, what about math? But and I I know that's my conditioning, that's because I was trained to be a good girl and I was trained to be compliant. I was trained to hack the system, which I did. I hacked the system. Was it enriching? No, did I mean? I, you know, did I forget what I learned five minutes after I learned it at five minutes after the test? Yeah, I did, I did. Did I learn how to balance a checkbook or have nonviolent communication or conflict resolution or how to you know, like these things that are real life? And yet there's so much unlearning that needs to be done from all of us because we were underpons in the system for lack of a better term, and so now parents too, everybody yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's an opportunity for us to go like okay, why do I push back when I hear this new education paradigm? Why do I, you know, like I think it's a good opportunity for to get here?
Speaker 3:You're not aware at the moment you're aware. So, for example, do you think that it really destroyed ourselves because we're using calculators? Because in my time there were no calculators. We have to do everything on paper. So you think that really destroyed us to be system? Because what you learn in math is system applications that that system needs. So what the problem is today with math kids can do math that's what I learned from teachers but they don't know how to apply it. They don't know when to add, when to multiply, when to divide it. That is an awareness, understanding, how. So why not doing reverse? When you have these, you know art and you can all you know you can see that in it. So you're art creation. You do team sports, and how are we going to figure this out? And then teach math? The simple. You only need the simple math. Who needs complicated math other than a scientist?
Speaker 3:a system, super system guy. So normal people don't need math. They need division, multiplication, add and subtract, that's it, you know. And multiply, so these four things. Obviously it's like, of course, we teach the alphabet, but in a playful environment like Montessori.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 3:And my system and my education is not. I don't have the curriculum written out, but I want to just see systems. I want to see people like you to say, okay, let me think that further. I know how that makes sense, or I would oh, there's another. I mean, I thought first it was just about team sports and creative as a group creation and then awareness, and then I found this with the pet, then I found the issue with the pet. So if you say I think there's something else we should be doing with nature or with that, so this is what, how we? I just seed stuff and then people come back to me and say, hey, let's do this and let's. How can we get more, you know, involved in this?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're a seed planter. I love that. I resonate with that a lot. So I my children went to a nature school last year and everything that they needed to learn happened in nature. I mean they were doing math and English and history and science and place-based education, all just based on you know something that they find in the outside.
Speaker 1:I mean there is a way to bring the subjects what we've labeled as subjects into you know, something that's not complicated, something that's in our faces every day, all the time. Yeah, it doesn't have to be so linear.
Speaker 3:It doesn't have to be linear, it can be experiential. It can nature would be. If you teach math in nature, it's experiential teaching which you remember. Yeah. You will not remember linear because it's pulled out of you and putting in a mind construct. In a mind construct, you're lost. You have to experience it. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Since I don't know why do I need division? If you say you need to learn the division, I said why. But if I come to a natural situation where division was helpful, when I, for example, have you know, you add it up have 2,000 seeds, and how do I divide it to 15 people? There is something that's experiential and this is what's so wonderful, you know, in experiential learning. That's what Montessori does. Montessori does. There was a guy that did this because we absorb from each other too. There was a guy that was only the first three grades. He was just sitting outside on the bench and doing drip candles. He's not one of the most genius person in some super computer company.
Speaker 1:Would you say that one of your life's purposes or missions is to help wake people up? Michael?
Speaker 3:I call myself a creativity awareness educator.
Speaker 1:You make people aware? Do you find that it's easy to make people aware? Because here's my dilemma right now. I think this is relevant. This is what's coming up for me Is that we can find ourselves in these echo chambers, right, so you know I, you know the things we listen to, the content we consume. We can find ourselves in an echo chamber. So I think, okay, you know, I've gone outside and I've become aware of how I can shift for our family. But then I've got that down, like we've got it right. How about our neighborhood and our city and our county and our state, and so on and so forth? Like, I do believe we can change the world by starting at home in our own minds and hearts. But then how do we, you know, get the other people who are maybe critical or maybe don't understand, like, how do we you and me right here get them to consider that there's a different way? Like, have you found?
Speaker 3:Make it non-systemic? There is no way. So, for example, when people ask me, so what? Like often I get I did over 200 podcasts in the last since last March, because everybody wants to talk to me. So what happens is the people ask me so what would you say the three most important things are, or whatever, and I said I don't have steps because the moment you are aware, change is not an induced thing. So that's why you know all the spiritual people and all the wise people say be the change.
Speaker 3:So when you are the change, when you and your family function in harmony, people will say how did you do that? That your kid doesn't go crazy? How does you know it's that's how people we have, that we have that sixth sense, or that what Ryan does works, what Michael does works, and that's the be the example. That's the only. As much as you want to systemically say oh my God, I know this would help you. Being conscious doesn't mean they are conscious. So the only way is the curiosity, because we all have a drive to become conscious. We have a drive, that's why we go to school, that's why we do life. But if and they have a sixth sense, they say you know what. There's two families, there's Ryan and there's Frank with his family, and Frank does doesn't work at all, but Ryan works totally and I'm in the middle somewhere. I got to hang out a little bit with Ryan more to figure that out. And the better you are, or at least in the podcast, it doesn't mean even a neighborhood you know they might not reflect. That's why podcast is such great, because you can talk to anybody and some weird way you don't need millions of followers. It needs to be the right follower that gets to you and then the right follower, because that's how life works. Life doesn't work with a million. And how much does it really satisfy you having all of a sudden 15,000 listener? It doesn't. It's a number. The end is never justifying the means, Never, ever. You can have Taoskers.
Speaker 3:I worked with Robert Evans who did the Godfather and Chinatown and Love Story, and I lived in his house and co-produced with him and I wasn't fulfilled. I was the Arts Commission of Newport Beach. I wasn't fulfilled. It's just a thing that you think. It's a promise, a system promise. You get the Oscar, your life is done and I very much friend of mine said what is it if you're 40 years? You're working for this goal and then the goal doesn't deliver. What is that? When you have your job, how many medical students do you know that have the longest education? And they're completely frustrated when they have their diploma, they have done their internship, I mean, they've already almost killed in their internship and then they come out and say, oh my God, that was so not what they expected. None of my internal problems have solved. I still feel jealous. I still don't get the girl. I still did, you know, yep.
Speaker 1:If you would have asked little Ryan what she wanted to be when she grew up, she would have said I want to be a pediatrician for years and years. That's what I said, and I noticed that it got really positive reactions from the adults Of course, of course, of course, ryan. They loved it. And then another thing the perfect child. The perfect child Till a certain point, but then until I rebelled. And you know, that's my journey and that's why I'm here today, because I am a rebel at heart.
Speaker 1:And then another thing, though, I notice and remember about saying I want to be a pediatrician is that I always wanted to help kids. I always had a desire and I thought that pediatrician was helping kids. I realized now, after peeling back the onion of the medical system, that it's a whole nother thing. But yeah, I just so that's in my heart. I look back and just say to little Ryan, like you're doing the thing that you knew you were always going to do, so I'm curious for little Michael. What was? I have a guess. I mean, I think it's a lot of the things we talked about art, creativity, nature but like, paint us a picture of who little Michael was and you know his biggest dreams.
Speaker 3:I only had very little dreams because I was a sick child and because of my neurodiversity. So it was struggle. It was basically pushing me in the moment to just take step by step, baby steps. I had to. I had, I was forced out this unbelievable spirit that has to be tamed by me basically. I mean literally it's by the same, by the system. I had to literally learn to lean into my now, into my now, whatever that is, if that's pain, if that's sickness, if that's neurodiversity, I have to learn to lean into that. And by learning into that I mean I had to dream. I had a dream.
Speaker 3:I tell you there's two very strong things. I wanted to always know how things work. So I was a motorcycleist and racer and stuff. So I always took apart motor. I was 10 years old and had my first motorcycle and you know, worked for it to get it and took it right away. Bart, the first thing was I cut the fenders off. That was the first thing and so I love. So creation was very important alteration creation. And then I wanted to.
Speaker 3:When I was like 12, 13, 14, it came to me I want to be a life loved arts, obviously. I watched a lot of films that saved me. I did music and whatever. So I wanted to be a film producer and not become. And I knew exactly why I wanted to film producer because I said I would be too too bored being just a director or actor or something. I needed to be in charge of all that.
Speaker 3:So I was interested in context how things work, first how things work, and then I want to see how things work in the context. And that's why. And then I was forced by the system now to get systemic. So literally my dream came true because I'm very contextual thinking and the neurodiversity you know, always I'm always zooming out. I'm rarely zooming in, I'm zooming in into me. When I say, okay, why is this exactly like, say, this problem with, let's say, I feel jealous, I would go. Or I think, why is this happening to me? There, I go micro, but everywhere else I go macro. So with you or with everybody else, or with my interaction with systems and other humans, I go macro and I go micro when it comes to me, when there's an issue that bothers me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you for painting us that picture. I think that's so relevant to everything we've talked about. I mean, I picture you like taking apart the systems, taking apart the motorcycle, taking apart the system, so that's how you have this brilliant mind in seeing the part, seeing how they're working together. It's like this bird's eye view. It's really, really cool. Yeah. That's a gift.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I'm not against anything. I never was one guy that says oh damn, maran, I hate you. What you just said I never had. That I always feel. You know, I think that was given to me. I feel inclusion because it saved me. You know, I couldn't be system relevant in school, so I had to be human relevant. I had to be and it saved my life. And now I'm promoting what saved my life art and human relevant.
Speaker 3:Because art is human relevant, because a girl can play a guy If we don't have the actors. You play the guy and it's fine and people understand it. You know it's not racist, it's not. So everybody, as long as you're a part of it and make it work. And I give you a good example you know sea levels and you said you are. You know. You know the sea levels and what the people do and the lower things of corporations, that they don't know what the bottom does and that it is you know.
Speaker 3:And in the symphony orchestra you have a conductor too. But the difference between a CEO and the conductor is if the curtain doesn't open, if the light doesn't go on, even if he's the best conductor and he has the best violinist and the oboe ist makes a wrong song, the whole thing collapses. That doesn't happen in companies. That can be a lot of wrong till the end, the very end. Then it collapses totally. But it could be a long thing of pretending and manipulating. In art it is what it is, and if the guy cannot play the override or the flute right, it's there, it affects everything and everybody can see it and it's all in the open. So that's why I think it is so, so important. The arts got me human. That's why I think art is the blueprint of what's humanly possible, not what systemically possible, but what's humanly possible is the first thing. And then, when we know what's humanly possible, the systems problems disappear.
Speaker 1:Right, so for you, art is the answer for everything and you can plug it into any problem and it's the solution, especially the consciousness crisis. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:I say two things. The tool is art, art creation. So when I am confronted with a problem like a system problem, for example, if I'm a system problem, I'm looking at what is my steps in. A system problem is what is the human problem? No-transcript. So if you are in production and I'm in sales in the same company and we have a problem between sales and production, you can never make enough thing, or you have too much, or I cannot deliver what you've. Great, I've fixed the human problem between you and me. There's something in the communication. The moment that is done, we together fix the system problem very easy. It's usually when I separate from you. You do the production, I do the shipping. That's where the problem is. When I start talking to you, the system problem resolves.
Speaker 3:Now, when I look at a human problem, I look at nature. How does nature do it? Do they fight it out till they're both dead? Does the lion go into the savannah and kill every castle that he has food tomorrow or the next year? No, that's a completely weird thing. Let's say there's a gender issue. I said does a zebra really care about there's a female zebra other than procreation? Or that the zebra has in racism? Is the zebra looking at the giraffe and say your pattern is a little off, you're not as valuable. When you look at that, you're exactly that district people off.
Speaker 1:It's funny, it is.
Speaker 3:This is one of our best truths tell us ever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I pictured the zebra saying no, I'm black with white stripes. Or no, I'm white, with black stripes.
Speaker 3:See, I've never thought about that, but it gives you the answer. Yeah. It gives you. You look at nature for human problems and you look for human in system problems.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay. So, as we start to wrap up, I could talk to you for two more hours, but let's we can do this again.
Speaker 3:We can do this again, for sure, for sure.
Speaker 1:Let's wrap on a real life problem that really gets under my skin. Let's see if we can come up with a solution, you and me. Let's put our two heads together. So, in my opinion, standardized testing in the mainstream school system is a problem. So they start testing, I think, in third grade in the state of Florida, or something like that. Why is it a problem? Okay, well, let's go with, like mental health. Let's go with the teachers are teaching to the tests. Let's go with. It's hurting kids' self-esteem, it's causing problems at home because the kids are coming home stressed out and the parents aren't emotionally regulated, and so it's causing ripples and ripples of problems for a number of different things. So the standardized testing system itself is broken.
Speaker 3:Let's say it's a lie. It's a lie too. There's no one answer. There's no Because humans are all unique. So you go to humans. You know that girls are two years in advance till, I think, 12, right?
Speaker 3:The advance that the frontal cortex and the brain is more, and that's just nature. You can't change that. You can't systemize that and force that into systemic. And if you do a systemic test, just as the system is more stable and the system, the system has to follow humans, we cannot follow the system. We cannot. That's it. What else we need to know? Yeah, tell me. If you want arguments, those are arguments. Yeah.
Speaker 3:The neurodiversity. How are you going to deal with neurodiversity? That is, by the way, a lot induced by systems. Edhd is a lot. Pdsd takes five years to get out. So five generations, your kids still have PDSD systems. That's why I say war is absolutely the last, because you don't know even if, to win the war, you don't know what you bring back, mass shootings. So you're thinking, oh, there's a kid shooting with an AK-47, shoots everybody. Why do you think that? It's not because the kid wasn't raised well, the kid might have PDSD from his generation of the Korean War.
Speaker 3:Nobody looks at the context. I tell you, stop with looking at the details. Look at the context. We are humans and that is number one. And systems have to serve us, not to make us worse. Because if you put Saturday's testing, testing is basically regurgitating that you are and they make your system applicable. How much you can adapt with your adaptation, how much life force you can give to a system to adapt. That's how you cracked the system. You had so much spirit. You had the luxury having that spirit and I had the luxury to survive without it, but you had the luxury. So then we are the same. We have very strong spirit. You could use that to adapt and need to survive and become me. Yeah, so is there anything questioning with that standardizing? I can go deeper if you want.
Speaker 1:I mean. So then the systems argument is well, we need it to figure out where our kids are at. We need it to have some sort of judgment or number on where kids are and how the average is, and what average. A number is never human.
Speaker 3:A number is never human. That's what my outside mother would say. You cannot put systemized. We have 8 billion people, everybody's unique. You cannot put a number on this kid. Yeah, you can assess a child by how much he knows who he or she is. That's how you can assess. You can't assess a child by what it will be and what it could be and what it think, because that's a mind construct. Thinking about the future is a mind construct. If we could predict the future, we would have everything figured out. There's nobody on this planet can predict the future. So if you go in a mind construct and say, ok, if we give him a four, he's a four, he's an A, he's a B, he's a C, that doesn't mean we have the best students that get nothing, the best school students, which is another proven I mean. I can go on and on and on. Remember I couldn't fit into systems, right, I have zero system education.
Speaker 3:So I understand systems super well because I tried to get in and try to navigate them.
Speaker 3:So you need anything, you just give me an email and say I have these problems when it comes to education, and I say it's so. Anti-human Education is also a system that needs to be humanized, but not systemically. You cannot recreate all these systems. Education created a standard that is actually destroying humanity. It's not furthering humanity because we're not learning how we are as humans, what to do with our humanity. What we learn is how to adapt to systems to make money to survive, basically.
Speaker 3:And there is the whole thing. The financial Money is the greatest invention in the world, but the financial system that we created, the financial principles that always create lack, constant lack. The fact that they need the classification of kids is because there's a lack of workers, there's a lack of people. After COVID, nobody wants to go to work anymore. Why? Because they want to be human. It has nothing to do with it and it will not end up that people stay at home and do their job. It will be probably a hybrid, because humans need the connection to other humans and with it, the teamwork is a beautiful thing. That's why teamwork is in sports is so good, because there's a common goal and you can't veer off because you're off the team. So it's not a control, it's just you contribute. How can you contribute? And one person is a water bake, one is a line baker.
Speaker 3:You get the position that you find out when you start football. You don't know that, but by team sport you find yourself out and education is about finding out self, not finding where to fit in and how much energy you have to sacrifice for the system. Life is not a sacrifice. Life is not always happy. That's the big system lie right, it should be always sunny. Life is not always sunny for any other. And then I look at the animal. I say animals don't have a perfect shelter, they don't have perfect food, but they are also not sacrificing themselves and they enjoy being. They enjoy we are human being, so fulfillment is your emotional loop that you need to find in every system. If you cannot find fulfillment in education, you are anti-human. If children don't find fulfillment in education, then this system is anti-human. Yeah right.
Speaker 3:And that needs to be said by our mothers at least.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree. And so the invitation here I'm going to tie it up with a lovely little bow as we start to wrap up and I'll have it back because we have so much more to chat about the invitation here is for us as mothers, as parents, as even just community members, to march into our schools and our community centers and our YMCA's and to bring our gifts into there. So to bring our mindfulness or our yoga or our meditation or our art or all these, whatever your gift is. Each of you here has a unique gift. Michael, you have a unique gift, I have a unique gift. So we're bringing that with us like our little torch and we're marching into our local places where our kids are hanging out, where our community members are hanging out, and we're bringing that light with us into that building. We don't need to change it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and asking questions like not to protest, not to know. We are going to do it. Yeah, why are we going to do it? Please give me the system, because the system never knows normal. It requests normal. It never knows. If you request normal, you've got to define normal. There is your question. There's your answer for the whole thing. If you think you gotta define it because there is no normal eight billion people are different how can you be normal? You're always abnormal. Ask every human being you come in contact. Where didn't you fit in? But I know we have the ability to make this work with all our uniqueness. It's just a perception shift. The perception of education is 1842, right, since 1842, we have pretty much the same education.
Speaker 1:For the education system. Well, I believe it started around the start of the Industrial. Revolution.
Speaker 3:So yeah, and they were you know 1842, yeah, I heard last time 1842 or 1845.
Speaker 1:Right, it was so that we could have factory workers and it was you know injection with the Industrial Revolution, and that's what school was, and school has not changed. Well, first of all, historically speaking, it's very, very new and since then, what 200 years I mean hasn't changed all that much. In fact, it's pretty similar, you know it's like. So, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Do we wanna enslave humans? This is the way to systemically enslave humans. Education I'm saying it, let's get it. It's taken away your uniqueness, yeah, and making you saying you know, and taking advantage of your DNA drive. That is inclusive, that you wanna be the herd. That's why, when you're not a lesson, you rather belong to a group than be alone.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's hard to hear, though, take advantage of that drive and say if you wanna be part of it, you have to do what we want and that's what you can be, not that we can help you. The system, a system can be different. And say you know what, ryan, you're a little kid, five years old, you come to a three-kinder gardener school. We're gonna find how great you are. How wonderful would that be. Everybody would love to go to school. Yeah, because we will do everything and we'll find data how to find the easiest way to find Michael and Ryan, how, what they could be. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And we define you, we help you define yourself, and then you'll know, hey, I'm good at that, Right. And then there's nothing wrong because I'm not as good in sports, because I am the king of art, you know, or I'm the king of what's called a woman, a mother, and whatever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, self-discovery for me started. I was 30 years old when I started to discover myself. It's like how about let's discover ourselves when we're four?
Speaker 3:Exactly exactly, and it's so easy. It is so easy. This is not. It has. No, that's like I say I don't have three steps. You know it's awareness. That's why I'm a creativity awareness educator to educate about the awareness of being who you are. And if I find you can never be the best that you are if you don't know yourself, so if I can help you know yourself, which I'm doing right now, and you help me to know myself by giving me feedback and say you know, that works with me, so that makes me more, brings my conscious more into grounding, and say, okay, what are my theories, are what theses are? They make humanly sense and I only wanna make humanly sense. I don't wanna make systemic sense. Systemic sense is always achieved when human sense works.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, michael, where can we find you, follow you and learn more about what you do on a daily basis?
Speaker 3:MichaelMcom, michael with two L's, michaelmcom and that's everything. Linkedin, all the thing, my podcast, my music, my books, everything you can get there, but this, if anybody likes this, first of all, with everybody that is in the education and a mother to re-listen to this, because there's so much in there. We really packed that episode and I wasn't even aware that I had to. You know, go that deep, so I would re-listen to it. And, if you like what I say, just listen to my 32nd podcast, where it's just a quote and a question and that will give you a lot of the human-centric awareness and art about your creation, being a creator animal.
Speaker 1:What's the name of your podcast?
Speaker 3:Smart of Art, the power of art and creativity.
Speaker 1:Amazing. We'll link it up in the show notes. And, as we officially wrap up, I'm gonna ask you the three questions I ask everybody at the end of the interview, and the first one is what's bringing you joy today?
Speaker 3:This. This brings me joy, this is, I mean, this doesn't get better than this, because being in a moment with another human being that you don't know and you just link up with that, that is as joyful as it can get. I don't have to talk around systemically, I don't have to say how are you doing? Oh, are you doing good? You know, I don't have to do all the flascals the societal which is, by the way, also system and it's very fulfilling and that's why you know, 1%, a less than 1% of podcasts does make 99% of revenue. And why do you think there's millions of podcasts? Because it's so human and it's so fulfilling and it's so lifting our consciousness and our human potential.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's the best thing you can do. That's the best thing you can do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's bringing me joy too. That's amazing. And what are you reading right now, if anything?
Speaker 3:I read over and over. I wrote I read a book on creativity. I'm reading over and over the Rick Rubin. You know the music producer. He sent me a pre-copy of his book. I reread that over and over because it's very conform with mine. It's very going hand in hand. I read the Power of the Moment, the New Earth with Ed Katole, but I can't read. I have to listen to them, all of them. So because I can't read Audio books. I can read, but I get lost, I space out, I lose the context.
Speaker 1:So I just heard a podcast. I didn't know who Rick Rubin was, but I just heard a podcast with him the other day and I was enthralled.
Speaker 3:I really really enjoyed his words and his ideas.
Speaker 1:Yeah, at Cartol 8, 2, always on my nightstand, for sure. And the last question is who or what has taught you the most?
Speaker 3:You asked me my whole life, I would say I never had mentors or anything because I couldn't plug in. I would say adversity. I mean I really would say mistakes and adversity, and I don't feel I made a lot of mistakes, but I had a lot of adversity and I feel the learning curve of an adversity versus a success. You can't compare that to the learning curve, the awareness curve that you get from running against the wall. And I ran against the wall, like I said, till 55. And I, just because you are forced by your being that's our limitlessness to always reset to okay, let's try this, let's try that way, let's do it a little bit different. You know, until you have results and the results come. But if you see adversity and mistakes as a bad which is another system lie, then you will self shame yourself, then you will use mistakes and failure to shame you that you're not good enough, and that's so. I wrote a long article you can, I can send it to you, you can include it in this about mistake and failure.
Speaker 1:Please, I'd love to. I'll link it in the notes too. Thank you so much for all of that. Thank you for being here and sharing your mind and your heart and your wisdom, and for bouncing ideas off of me and letting me bounce them off of you. This is one of my favorite things to do in the entire world and I just I appreciate you so much, thank you.
Speaker 3:Thank you, Ryan and Danielle at signing off.